{"id":21253,"date":"2017-01-05T00:10:14","date_gmt":"2017-01-05T08:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lccredding.com\/lcc\/?p=9805"},"modified":"2017-01-05T00:10:14","modified_gmt":"2017-01-05T08:10:14","slug":"january-5-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2017\/01\/05\/january-5-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"January 5, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cHe who cultivates his land will be satisfied with bread, but he who follows vain things is devoid of understanding.\u201d<\/em> Proverbs\u00a012:11<\/span><\/p>\n

Cultivating Awe and Reverence for God, Day 5<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

Tilling the Soil<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

I love the smell of fresh-turned dirt. My mother and I worked side-by-side in our yard and flowerbeds throughout my childhood. We pruned and weeded, fertilized and harvested year after year. Gardening became very much a part of me.<\/span><\/p>\n

I learned that cultivating soil involves developing, improving, feeding, and turning it over and over to break up clods and spread out the worms and nutrients.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The definition of cultivate<\/em> can easily be applied to our spiritual selves. When I cultivate my spirit, I develop and improve it by the education and training of God\u2019s Word. I refine it by discipline. I promote its growth and development by careful feeding and nurturing, supplemented by obedience\u2014doing what is right. I turn His Word over and over in my mind until I am given understanding by the Holy Spirit. And one more important component of cultivation is devoting myself to the task.<\/span><\/p>\n

This series of devotions is dedicated to cultivating awe and reverence for God. If we are to cultivate awe and reverence for God, I can assure you it won\u2019t \u201cjust happen.\u201d We must prepare and tend our hearts and minds. We must feed on the right things and not allow any unwholesome food to become our sustenance. We must stay with the task day after day until, as with gardening, it becomes a part of us.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There is a great harvest in cultivating awe and reverence for God. When we properly know who He is, we will be filled with awe\u2014speechless, breathless wonder that issues forth in praise. When we see Him as He is, we will revere Him as only a hand-chosen, well-loved mortal can respond to Deity. And we will be satisfied and full.<\/span><\/p>\n

To abandon the cultivation of awe and reverence, to ignore or neglect it, is to stay in a sleepy, half-aware, uncertain state. If we do not cultivate awe and reverence, we will wonder what is the big deal about worship, we will be critical of those who deeply love and meditate on God\u2019s Word, and we may privately mock those who live consecrated, set-apart lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before I began to cultivate awe and reverence for God, I did not know how near He was. I did not experience the utter joy of His presence. I was living quite apart from the very Fountain of Life, the rushing River of Living Waters. These are not just metaphors\u2014they are truth, like a Rock that can be confidently stood upon.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let us cultivate the land that we call \u201clife\u201d so that we may be satisfied by the Bread of Life. May we no longer follow vain things\u2014anything \u201cother\u201d\u2014and thus be classified as devoid of understanding.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMaster Gardener, till up the soil of our hearts, that we may cultivate a deep awe and reverence for You. Become a part of our inmost being so that we are continually aware of Your presence. We deeply desire to be changed. In Jesus\u2019 Name, Amen.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHe who cultivates his land will be satisfied with bread, but he who follows vain things is devoid of understanding.\u201d […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-5wN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}